This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Quebec is wrong to treat the hijab as a political tool

The hijab is a fundamental part of faith, not an object of political expediency.

Demonstrators take part in a protest against Quebec's proposed Charter of Values in Montreal on Sept. 14, 2013. (Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

By Humera Jabir

Wed., Oct. 2, 2013

My mother is the reason I began to wear the hijab. For her the hijab is a fundamental part of faith, a way to carry out the Quran’s requirement of modesty and to live in accordance with the prophetic example. I too began wearing it with the sincere belief that the hijab was an act of worship and a daily reminder of my faith.

But it didn’t stay that way long. Growing up in the years following Sept. 11, the sudden demonization of the faith I cherish changed everything. As the war on terror unfolded before me — accompanied by the vandalism of mosques, Quran burnings and hijab bans — I became political. The only veiled girl in many contexts, I found myself required to answer for my faith, my community and my choice to wear the hijab. I positioned myself on defence and the hijab was my banner.

I politicized the hijab and that is why 10 years after I first began wearing it I decided to stop. The hijab is not my tool; it is not a banner to be flown in the face of Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia. I used the hijab as a loudspeaker to say here I am, a strong Muslim woman in your midst, but I began to feel hollow wearing it. I wore it only to challenge others neglecting it as a part of my faith. More importantly, I felt insincere. How could I, who lost all understanding of the hijab as an act of worship fundamental to many women’s belief, seek to represent Islam on their behalf?

Just as the hijab is not my tool, it is also not a tool for the use of the Saudi, Afghan, or Iranian orthodoxy looking to gain legitimacy through the display of religion. My mother’s example and that of other hijab-wearing women established the hijab for me as a matter of individual choice and sincere personal conviction. Its imposition denies women this essential choice, using them as the standard bearers of a fictitious community morality. The hijab is not a dress code; it cannot be used as a pass in the litmus test of state religiosity.

And now as Quebecers grapple with the Charter of Values, the hijab is again used as a political tool, this time by the Parti Québécois to shore up political support. Those who would argue that the charter is not a populist measure must account for the fact that it is not rooted in any incident. No public servant has been reported for unprofessionalism, no child indoctrinated by a schoolteacher.

Article Continued Below

And just as some Muslim-majority regimes seek to build their credentials by washing the state in religion, the PQ is attempting something very similar. The charter is an effort to wash society in secularism, a different kind of official doctrine, but no less heavy-handed. The message is clear: the hijab, along with other religious symbols, is an object to be outlawed, stigmatized and removed from sight. Those who wear the hijab challenge yet another fictitious community morality: Quebec as a place without religion.

The hijab has also become a tool in the hands of certain feminists who have turned its prohibition into a cause célèbre for gender equity. Equality is an excellent ideal to strive for but politicizing the hijab in this way does not create a more equal society, just a more equal-looking one in the eyes of charter supporters. Those seeking to truly empower women should do everything possible to open the doors to education and employment rather than create new barriers to their independence.

PQ member Louise Beaudoin and other outspoken “feminist” supporters of the charter argue that it poses no barrier to Muslim women’s employment; they will simply take the hijab off on their way to work and carry on. But to turn the hijab into an object comparable to a hat that can be left at the door in the morning denies the fundamental, non-political, reality of what the hijab is: an act of worship that has great meaning in people’s lives. Ask someone who has taken it off: it is not easy. I went back and forth for two years before I came to my decision, all the while fearing I was losing something essential to who I am. Have no doubt: the charter’s requirement to unveil is no small demand.

I found myself the day of the charter’s announcement wishing I still wore the hijab. While returning to it is a tempting reaction, it’s the wrong one. If I go back it will be because I have found firm spiritual grounding for my decision, not the momentary need to fight back against political attack. The hijab is not an object of political expediency; I don’t get to use it that way and neither should anyone else.

Humera Jabir is a law student at McGill University in Montreal. A longer version of this piece previously appeared in Maisonneuve.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com